Technical Papers

AdaCore Technologies for DO-178C / ED-12C

The guidance in the DO-178C / ED-12C standard and its associated technology-specific supplements helps achieve confidence that airborne software meets its requirements. Certifying that a system complies with this guidance is a challenging task, especially for the verification activities, but appropriate usage of qualified tools and specialized run- time libraries can significantly simplify the effort. This document explains how a number of technologies offered by AdaCore – tools, libraries, and supplemental services – can help. It covers not only the “core” DO-178C / ED-12C standard but also the technology supplements: Model-Based Development and Verification (DO-331 / ED-218), Object-Oriented Technology and Related Techniques (DO-332 / ED-217), and Formal Methods (DO-333 / ED-216). The content is based on the authors’ many years of practical experience with the certification of airborne software, with the Ada and SPARK programming languages, and with the technologies addressed by the DO-178C / ED-12C supplements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ben Brosgol (AdaCore) for his review of and contributions to the material presented in this document.